Screenwriter for The Wire and ER dies after aneurysm

DAVID MILLS, an Emmy Award-winning television writer who contributed to dramas The Wire and ER, has died at age 48 after apparently suffering a brain aneurysm, HBO said.

Mills fell ill on Tuesday night in New Orleans on the set of upcoming HBO drama Treme, people involved in the show said.

He lost consciousness and died at a hospital, and doctors said it appeared he had a brain aneurysm, according to the statement.

“HBO is deeply saddened by the sudden loss of our dear friend and colleague David Mills,” HBO said in a statement. “He was a gracious and humble man, and will be sorely missed by those who knew and loved him, as well as those who were aware of his immense talent.”

Wendell Pierce, who played Detective William “Bunk” Moreland on The Wire, and plays a musician in Treme, said he collapsed on the set.

“He was carrying on a conversation and just fell over. They called the medics, but there was nothing to be done. I’m so sorry he won’t be able to see the launch of the show he cared so much about.”

Mills wrote for the Washington Post in the early 1990s, reporting on race and popular culture for the Style section. He later wrote episodes for TV police dramas NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street and hospital series ER, all during the 1990s. Mills wrote episodes of the critically acclaimed series The Wire in 2006 and 2007, a show created by writer and producer David Simon that took a gritty look at Baltimore’s drug trade, police force, newspaper business and bureaucracy.

Treme, about New Orleans in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, was Mills’ latest project. The programme, which he produced along with Simon, will debut on April 11.

Mills won a pair of prime-time Emmy Awards in 2000 for his work on TV mini-series The Corner, another show from Simon, a former journalist who worked with Mills on the student newspaper at the University of Maryland in the 1980s.

Mills is survived by siblings Blanche Carroll, Gloria Johnson and Franklin Mills.